The Council of Ten Read online

  “That’s what I’m doing.”

  “Their vacations in the Bahamas were just a front. The women would always take an extra suitcase along. Somewhere in Nassau they would leave the suitcases and before they left for home the same suitcases would be returned to them. Full of cocaine. You can see we’re not talking about minor amounts here. Each vacation saw the grandmothers return with upwards of two hundred pounds of pure, uncut cocaine, street valued at up to thirty million dollars. Multiply that by the number of trips they made and the dollar amount exceeds three hundred million. Who would have ever suspected?”

  “Not you apparently; that is, until my grandmother made the mistake of putting in a call to the ever brilliant DEA.”

  “What happened wasn’t our fault.”

  “Then tell me whose it was.”

  “What’s it matter?”

  “It does, that’s all.”

  Masterson sighed heavily. “A drug lord named Arthur Trelana. We’ve got a file on him an inch thick, but all it adds up to are insinuations we can’t prove. He’s a goddamn model citizen who gives to all the right charities and joins all the right civic organizations.”

  “Must have added up enough for you to use my grandmother.”

  “I told you I had nothing to—”

  “I’m not finished with my questions yet, Agent Masterson. I think I’m square on why Trelana used my grandmother. Now I want to know why you did.”

  Masterson’s tired face showed pain, drooping slowly. “It was her idea. She insisted on it. I thought I could keep her alive, I really did. I don’t know what went wrong, how it went wrong. You want me to say I’m sorry I used her the way I did, but I won’t. I can’t.” The agent’s hands squeezed the wheel until the blood fled from his knuckles. His eyes twitched as the car came to a halt at a red light. “These people own everything. Me, you, the DEA. No one realizes the true scope of their power. How much do you really know about this drug agency? Do you know we’re hopelessly outmanned by the kind of power we’re up against? Do you know we lost twenty-four agents to contracts and shoot-outs last year alone? One worked with me in Miami. He had a wife and three kids.” Masterson paused and held his eyes closed. “When we found him his guts were cut out and his balls were stuck in his mouth.”

  Drew cringed. The light turned green. A horn behind them got Masterson moving again.

  “We can’t win, Drew,” resumed the agent softly. “Sure, we can take a few battles, but you can forget about the war. Trelana was a real break for us—for me—a legitimate head honcho we had a genuine crack at.”

  “Thanks to my grandmother.”

  “She was a lead. It’s what she wanted to be.”

  “But now she’s dead while Trelana’s still out there and there’s not a damn thing you or I or anyone else can do about it?”

  “We could arrest him, but it wouldn’t stick.”

  Drew hesitated. “He’ll try and kill me now, too, won’t he?” And when the agent stayed silent, Drew repeated louder, “Won’t he?”

  “Yes,” Masterson said softly, but then his tone heightened. “You had a chance until you insisted on this meeting. They’ll find out about it. Maybe they know already. Now that you’ve seen me, they’ve got to figure you can hurt them, and nobody hurts them. Take off. Run. Go as far as you can and then keep running. If you want to stay alive, it’s your only chance.”

  “Not necessarily.” Drew’s face twisted into a snarl. “I’m not really sure which of you I loathe more. It’s pretty much of a toss-up. Trelana killed my grandmother and you got her killed. Only thing you got going for you, Agent Masterson, is that I’m starting to figure you can help me.”

  “Help you what?”

  “Kill Trelana.”

  Chapter 6

  ON THE SURFACE IT was just a house on an ordinary side street of Tel Aviv. Its macadam steps were chipped and sagged with wear, its exterior much in need of a paint job thanks to the hot dusty winds that blew in over the summer months. A vendor stood lazily beneath a canopy in front of a cart full of oranges and vegetables. An Arab beggar knelt in the shade of an alleyway, shaking his cup at all those passing by.

  Of course, none of the passers-by, not even the ones who stopped to slip a coin into his cup, noticed that his baggy, soiled rags concealed the black steel frame of a baby Uzi machine gun. Nor did anyone notice the Eagle pistol beneath the vendor’s black jacket or the full-sized Uzi stored in a compartment beneath his oranges. The job of the two men was to protect the run-down building they fronted from any possible intruders.

  Unlike other international intelligence services, the Israeli Mossad did not maintain regular headquarters. A headquarters was kept up in Jerusalem as a front for the press and foreign inspection, but a front was all it was. Instead, the Mossad chose a number of substations scattered strategically all over the country. Many of these changed locations regularly for reasons of security and to flush out possible infiltrators. Even after a move was made, the old locations continued to be watched for a time. Agents who nonetheless showed up could thus be viewed and treated as spies. True Mossad agents were disciplined to the point of being fanatical. Codes were never missed, signals never failing to be relayed. In Israel’s world of the one against the many, such practice was mandated for survival.

  The woman who walked out of the shadows onto the side street was not dressed for the unusually long summer that was presently intruding on the start of fall. Her slacks and sweater were too dark, too heavy. Her waist-length jacket seemed unnecessary. The heels of her boots clicked against the sidewalk in rhythm with her step. In response, the beggar eased himself a little forward and showed his cup. The vendor straightened for a possible sale.

  The woman passed the beggar and dropped two coins into his cup, one at a time. The beggar glanced at them and nodded to the vendor as he pressed a button concealed within the nearby wall. The woman would now be permitted access to the building. Those inside would be ready for her.

  She strode up the macadam steps without hesitating, as if the house was hers. She knocked the way a home-at-last relative might, and the door opened swiftly to her Mossad control station.

  “We’ve been expecting you, Elliana,” a small, mustachioed man greeted her inside. Although short, his chest was framed like a barrel and his hairy forearms were knotted with muscle.

  Elliana Hirsch let Moshe close the door behind her and allowed herself a sigh. It felt good to be home after all these months. Yet, the circumstances of her recall disturbed her. It was too sudden, too unexplained. Such did not bode well.

  “We?” Elliana questioned, recalling her control Moshe’s use of the plural.

  Moshe hesitated before responding. His mustache seemed to twitch. At last he nodded. “Isser is upstairs,” he said.

  Elliana felt her stomach flutter. Isser was the name of the very first Mossad director, and since then the name had been taken by all who succeeded him as a sort of code. To think that the head of the entire organization had come to see her. Elliana could not even guess why. Such things were not done every day. She was an ordinary field agent. Suddenly the prospects of her recall seemed even more foreboding.

  “He wants to see you immediately,” Moshe told her.

  Elliana started up and felt her long, muscular legs go wobbly. In her own mind, she was much too tall for a woman and her steps often appeared gangly, but in much the same way that a large cat’s might.

  “Aren’t you coming?” she called to Moshe.

  “He wants to see you alone,” he returned, and Elliana tried to pass off the dread in his voice.

  She began to climb the rest of the flight. Her auburn hair was probably too long and dangled freely past her shoulders. She was pale and had neglected to don makeup for this recall meeting because she hadn’t seen any point in it. Of course, then she hadn’t known she’d be meeting with Isser himself. Listen to me, she thought, eleven years as a Mossad operative and I still can’t get foolish thoughts of appearance out of my head�
� .

  Elliana reached the second floor and turned right. Isser would be in the second room down. It was the way such things were done. She reached the doorway but didn’t knock. Isser saw her and rose immediately to his feet.

  “Ellie …”

  She moved tentatively forward, looking at his face for a reaction.

  It broke into a smile and he opened his arms. “It’s been much too long,” Isser said and hugged her close.

  In fact, it had been over five years now. They had last met shortly after her husband’s funeral when Isser had approved the operation she had worked on off and on ever since and lately all the time.

  Isser was a short man, so Elliana virtually absorbed him as they embraced. Unlike Moshe, the older Isser possessed little obvious muscle, but Elliana knew many men had perished from his hand. One did not get to be Mossad chief and remain there without first proving himself in the field.

  “You look tired,” Isser said, pulling back.

  “It was a long trip.”

  “The fatigue I see has little to do with the trip. Come, let’s sit.”

  He beckoned to a pair of chairs set against a side wall of the room safely away from the window. Men in Isser’s position learned fast to avoid windows. The room itself was simply furnished. A pair of desks, assorted chairs, two computer terminals presently switched off—just the necessities.

  Isser spoke as soon as they were both seated. “You’ve been irregular with filing of reports.”

  “It’s been difficult,” Ellie told him. “I’ve been undercover much of the time, watched constantly. Going to a drop point would have proven too dangerous.”

  He hesitated. “You know why I called you here, don’t you?”

  “I … suspect.”

  “I must recall you, Ellie,” he said with regret in his voice. “Your current operation can no longer be sanctioned.”

  “But why?”

  “Because we have seen no results, no evidence that merits continuation.”

  “We had an agreement, Isser.”

  “Yes, five years ago I gave you permission to do whatever was necessary to find the murderers of your husband. And now five years of time and wasted expense have yielded nothing.”

  “Not five years, Isser. The first four I worked on this only off and on. Just during the past year have I devoted myself fully, and at last I’m getting close. I’m certain of it this time.”

  “Ellie—”

  “No, wait, just listen. I’ve met with people. There’s finally evidence of stirring. I have a meet set up in Prague that—

  “Ellie,” Isser broke in patiently, “you are one of our finest field agents and certainly our most valuable woman. Your exploits are legend at the academy. No one is more respected for outstanding work in the field. We can no longer afford to spare you on such a wild goose chase. You are needed far more elsewhere. Israel’s very existence is at stake. Qaddaffi has lost what little mind he once possessed. The peace process has broken down, leading Jordan and Syria closer together. We need your expertise at work on projects more directly related to state security.”

  “Precisely why you should allow me to remain on my present assignment. The Council of Ten poses a greater threat to state security than any of those posed by the crumbling peace process.”

  “The Council of Ten,” Isser muttered. “Five years of pursuit and all you have gained is the shadowy title that you started with.”

  “More than just a title, also an aim. Global hegemony, Isser. That’s what the Council’s after and they won’t stop until they’ve got it. David must have found out about them. That’s why they killed him.”

  Isser’s eyes scolded her. “Time tends to make the memory selective, Ellie. David had just resigned from the cabinet to save face. He was not a man with many friends, within Israel or without. The list of suspects, well …” Isser finished his remarks with a shrug.

  “But his papers mention the Council.”

  “In a code only you have been able to break.”

  “Based on an ancient language from the time of Alexander. The Council was Alexander’s concept, a manifest plan to conquer the world and divide it into ten separate regions, each ruled by a district governor. All together they would determine policy under Alexander as a council of ten.”

  Isser shook his head slowly. “Five years of field work and all you can give me is a history lesson.”

  Ellie had never felt more helpless. How could she convince Isser that the Council of Ten had been reborn in the modern day, that her husband David had caught on to them and been killed in a fiery plane crash as a result? She had no proof. In truth, years of pursuit had gained only leads that went nowhere and connections that were severed at every turn. David had gotten close to them and had been executed as a result. She believed firmly that the Council had arranged his disgrace in the government as well. Their reach was everywhere.

  She had started her pursuit of the Council originally for David, but now she realized that she was doing it mostly for herself. Her marriage to him seven years before was a hectic affair squeezed in between assignments, seen by Ellie as a last chance at a normal life once her days in the field were over. His murder had forced her to face the realities of her chosen profession. There would be no peaceful retirement, and now at thirty-two she was almost certain to remain childless as well. The Council had stolen whatever chance she had at both away from her, and her obsessive quest for them had been as much for distraction as vengeance. The pursuit was simply all she had.

  Isser pushed his chair closer to hers. “Listen to me, Ellie. Look at you, you’re beaten and exhausted and what have you gained from it? Nothing.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “Then report to me your findings now.”

  “It’s not that simple. All I have are random occurrences. There’s never any firm proof or connections. But something’s going on.”

  “Open to interpretation, of course, and mine seems to be distinctly different from yours in this case.”

  “Don’t you see, Isser?” Elliana pleaded. “Everything the Council does is based around total secrecy. It’s the only way they can function. If all the intelligence services in the world fail to pursue them, they can flourish unhindered.”

  “Then tell me what you know about the Council. Who are its members?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where are the members from?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You are convinced they are after some unholy end, so tell me the means.”

  “That’s the point!” Ellie nearly shouted at him. “They were never in possession of the means until recently, so they couldn’t surface. That’s changed.”

  “And now they have this means?”

  “The indications are there.”

  “Tell me these indications.”

  “They’re vague, understated. I’ll know better after Prague in two days.”

  Isser hesitated only slightly. “You’re not going.”

  “What?”

  “We haven’t a safe house anywhere near Prague, you know that. I can’t let you go illegal without shelter, backups or no. You’re too valuable.”

  “I’ve gone illegal plenty of times without backups or shelter!”

  “This is different. You’ve been formally recalled for reassignment,” Isser said, his patience gone, his words cold and flat. “Moshe has all the details for you downstairs.”

  Elliana stood up angrily and stormed for the door. Suddenly she stopped, shoulders squaring.

  “I can’t accept this,” she said, still facing the hallway.

  “The choice is no longer yours.”

  “They killed David.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  She turned around. “I’m requesting a leave of absence.”

  “Denied.”

  “A vacation, then. I’ve got plenty of time coming.”

  “All personnel are on Priority Counter-terrorist Alert. All vaca
tions have been suspended.”

  Elliana tensed. “That only leaves me one choice.”

  Isser stood up and moved toward her. “You’d do this, you’d throw away everything you’ve accomplished, everything you are, just like that?”

  Ellie nodded, not sure if she meant to. It was all right, though, because now Isser would understand the gravity of this operation for her. She had proven her commitment to it and he would okay her continuing on with sanction. He had to.

  But he didn’t.

  “Your resignation will be accepted with grave disappointment,” was all he said, his expression blank. He drew a little closer to her with his arms folded. “You were the best, Ellie, but you’re not anymore. Obsession is the last thing an operative in your position can afford if you are going to survive. Obsession is a weakness and no weaknesses can be tolerated in the field. Death results or, worse, the compromising of others and the nation itself. The threads we hold onto are too thin to take chances. There is no place for personal vendettas once a professional attitude has been sacrificed. There’s too much at stake.”

  “There was no new assignment for me, was there?” Ellie said with sudden realization.

  “There might have been.”

  “A desk job,” Ellie said softly, “eventually a section chief if I’m lucky… .”

  Isser held his hands by his hips now. “Still yours if you want. My memory can be quite selective.”

  Elliana shook her head. “I belong in the field.”

  “Not on your own, Ellie,” Isser told her. “Not without us behind you.”

  “I’ve got to do this for David, Isser. You understand that, don’t you?”

  The Mossad chief ignored the question. “Once you walk out of here, there’s no coming back. You know that.”

  She nodded grimly and started to swing back for the door.

  “Ellie …”

  “Please, Isser, don’t.”

  He spoke as she moved into the hallway, tone wholly professional. “Your last checks will be forwarded to the usual drop.”